April 4, 2025 • 28 mins
Transform your understanding of anxiety and reclaim your creativity with insights from Dr. Peters' book, "A Path Through the Jungle." In this mini-series, we'll unlock the secrets of the impulsive chimp mind and explore how our subconscious beliefs shape our responses. Discover practical tools to develop positive helpful autopilots that reinforce empowering beliefs, and reduce anxiety over time.
“Helpful Autopilots” phrases are given throughout this episode.
“A Path through the Jungle” can be purchased on Amazon: https://a.co/d/4hx7M7M
See more about Dr. Peters at https://chimpmanagement.com
About Dr. Liz
Winner of numerous awards including Top 100 Moms in Business, Dr. Liz provides psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and hypnosis to people wanting a fast, easy way to transform all around the world. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and has special certification in Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy. Specialty areas include Anxiety, Insomnia, and Deeper Emotional Healing.
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Search episodes at the Podcast Page http://bit.ly/HM-podcast
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Listened to in over 140 countries, Hypnotize Me is the podcast about hypnosis, transformation, and healing. Certified hypnotherapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Dr. Liz Bonet, discusses hypnosis and interviews professionals doing transformational work
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, hey everyone.
Dr Liz, here we are continuing a little
mini-series maybe bigger than that, but
we'll see Based on the book A Path Through
the Jungle by Dr Peters, with an S,
p-e-t-e-r-s.
(00:22):
Now, the first episode I did this is hm 313
313.
So if you haven't heard that one and you
went more in the background, go back and
listen to that one.
But I'm going to give you the brief
overview here so that you're not completely
lost.
If you're like I don't know, dr liz, okay,
we have a chimp and we have a human.
(00:44):
The chimp is the monkey mind in and it just
throws around a lot of shit at us and it
signals when there's a problem.
It basically tells our human solve it,
solve it, solve it.
It continues to send the message in
not-so-pleasant ways.
It'll send us negative emotions until we
solve it.
The human is informed by two things the
(01:06):
chimp sending the message as well as our
programming, and our programming is our
beliefs, our subconscious beliefs, and we
have three different types.
We have helpful autopilots that help us out.
So these are good, positive thoughts.
Like you can handle this, you can adapt,
(01:26):
you've done amazing things in your life.
That's a good autopilot.
So let's just pause here.
If you're not keeping a success journal, I
highly suggest one, either electronic,
although I suggest like a nice little
notebook that's actually paper where you
write down successes nice little notebook
that's actually paper where you write down
(01:48):
successes.
One that I wrote down recently was when my
Cuban friend told me that this was the best
vaca frita he had ever had and I had made
it.
Okay, vaca frita is like this beef dish
that's a Cuban dish I don't make mine with
a tomato base, just in case you know what
that is.
And he said actually I usually avoid vaca
(02:09):
frita because I don't typically like it,
but this is delicious, it is the best I've
ever had.
And I was like I am totally writing that
down in my success journal.
That is huge.
When I first married my Cuban ex-husband, I
didn't even like to cook really.
So that's huge.
I made it for my daughter, my 19 year old,
(02:31):
because it's one of the few things that she
could eat without getting really sick and
nauseous.
So anyway, success journal, helpful
autopilots.
They often will come from your success
journal If you're tracking them, if you're
paying attention to them.
Two other subconscious beliefs are
unhelpful gremlins and unhelpful goblins.
(02:53):
The goblins are worse than the gremlins.
The goblins are these deeper subconscious
beliefs that say I'm a loser, I'm worthless,
I'll never get anywhere in my life.
I'm a loser, I'm worthless, I'll never get
anywhere in my life.
Gremlins are not so bad.
They're like okay, I did awful.
Or you know people say I'm an idiot all the
(03:13):
time.
But they'll add a bet to it.
But at least I did the best I could.
But that's still a gremlin.
I'm an idiot, it's still a gremlin.
Like, I say that all the time to myself and
sometimes it's true Okay, like I went to go
buy something.
And everyone knows, measure twice, measure
three times.
Right, that's more from like construction
before you cut, measure, measure twice, cut
(03:36):
once.
But still, when you're buying stuff, you
got to measure too.
And I did not measure and I got home and it
didn't fit and I was like I'm a total idiot.
But the helpful autopilot kicked in.
But it's okay, you're handling a lot of
things now and you can return this and buy
the right size.
Great, that's the helpful autopilot.
(03:57):
All right, I think many, many years passed
that would not have happened.
That second part.
I would have just felt stupid and believed
I was stupid too, maybe believed I can't
get anything right.
I would say that's probably a unhelpful
gremlin that I had in my past that is no
(04:18):
longer active.
Hasn't been for a long time.
Okay, so that's the very brief summary of
the whole last episode.
We try to change those negative beliefs
into helpful autopilots and then those
inform our human and the human solves the
problem that the chimp is throwing at it In
(04:40):
a positive way.
The chimp always wants to solve in a
negative way.
Actually, it doesn't really solve at all,
it really can't but it starts to act out
and do things that it thinks is solving.
But really that negative behavior is simply
just to get the attention of our human, who
can then go in and make a reasonable
decision for us.
That has some positive outcomes.
(05:03):
It doesn't sabotage ourself.
Okay, so we're going to talk more about
anxiety this week because I said we would
at the end of that episode Anxiety what is
helpful?
All right, let's do a little background on
anxiety here.
We know from brain studies that your brain
becomes sensitized to anxiety over time.
(05:24):
If it's not handled, anxiety gets
progressively worse.
Or if it's not treated, it gets
progressively worse and your brain starts
to set it off more and more frequently in
reaction to smaller and smaller things,
something that looks like nothing to
someone without anxiety will look huge to
someone with anxiety.
That's where you sometimes get this
(05:44):
disconnect, where they're like what, what
are you anxious about?
Like a disbelief kind of voice, because
they don't understand that your brain is
truly being affected by the anxiety.
Mainly it affects the hippocampus, which is
emotional processing, the anterior
cingulate, which is affect regulation,
(06:05):
that's, the ability to control and manage
uncomfortable emotions.
So our actual emotional regulation
decreases if we don't handle anxiety and
the amygdala, which is that fight or flight
freeze, the fear and anger creativity
center.
It affects all of that.
So when it's getting progressively worse,
(06:27):
we're getting less creative.
Literally we can come up with less
solutions.
And when it's treated, it gets
progressively better.
You become more creative, more courageous,
more confident, more able to handle
whatever the temp is throwing your way
without setting off anxiety.
So these are pretty incredible brain
(06:49):
studies that they do regarding anxiety and
I think it's so interesting because I see
it.
I see it in my practice all the time, being
an anxiety specialist.
People at the beginning cannot come up with
solutions, helpful autopilots, they just
(07:11):
feel stuck.
They really do and they are.
Their brain is stuck.
But when they begin to get better, then
they start to come up with creative
solutions, creative thoughts, creative
statements to say to themselves, support
statements, helpful autopilots to say
themselves.
So that's, it's an immediate and concrete
evidence of creativity.
Returning Now according to A Path Through
(07:34):
the Jungle if there's not an immediate
danger, anxiety is not dangerous.
It's just unpleasant and inconvenient.
And we have to ask what gremlin or goblin
is active?
So we ask that, okay, is there an immediate
danger?
Am I in danger here?
If not, then this is not dangerous.
(07:56):
But it's really unpleasant.
And again, our brains try to trick us and
make us think that something that's not
dangerous is dangerous.
So we have to talk back to our brain.
If we always believed our brains like 100%
of the time, we would be in some deep
doo-doo.
Okay, my brain is not accurate, all the
(08:17):
time is not accurate.
So we learn over time.
Okay, those thoughts aren't always accurate.
Let's choose the ones that are more helpful
to us.
Let's choose the ones that are going to
help me in this situation.
Let's choose the thoughts that can soothe
the chimp, that can make friends with the
(08:37):
chimp, that can reassure the chimp, because
the chimp needs some attention here Because,
remember, the chimp doesn't look for
solutions, it just tries to tell you about
the problem or uses avoidance okay, to
escape the situation, to get away from the
problem.
Don't include avoidance as part of your
plan.
(08:58):
If there's not an immediate danger, okay.
I'm not talking about domestic violence
here.
Avoidance is the primary thing you should
do.
With domestic violence, we're a dangerous
situation.
We're not stepping into dangerous
situations here.
We are using avoidance.
We try to avoid dangerous situations
whenever we can.
Why?
Because we have a survival drive, a safety
(09:20):
drive.
So we're not talking about that.
We're just simply talking about things that
are not so dangerous.
But we have started avoiding, like lizards.
I know you probably weren't expecting me to
say lizards.
At one point, my niece from Texas came to
visit me and she was a teenager at the time
and she was terrified of lizards.
(09:41):
Now there are lizards all over South
Florida.
We are warm okay, lizards love us.
You can literally go weeks, months seeing a
lizard almost every day.
Okay, they're in the house, they're on the
(10:01):
walls, they're in the sidewalks.
The cats bring them in Okay, they are
everywhere.
These are little lizards about the size of
your finger, you know, and I'm including
people who have all kinds of different size
hands here.
Okay, but really that's the variation.
We're talking about small lizards, and so
she was terrified of them and so we had to
(10:24):
walk through this process of like these are
not an immediate danger to you.
Your brain is lying to you about this and
we're going to have to do something more
helpful for you.
We're going to ignore the lizards or we're
going to tell ourselves something different
about the lizards.
Okay, so that's what I'm talking about.
I know immediate danger.
There's no lizards attacking her, all right.
(10:44):
And we're not talking about iguanas.
That's a whole different thing, although I
had multiple iguanas come into my house
over the years to get warm when it, when
the temperature would drop and, believe me,
I do not like iguanas in my house they were
always met with the scream in the broom.
Anyway, talking about lizards here.
(11:09):
Now, what's helpful for anxiety?
We're getting closer to the helpful stuff
here.
We recognize anxiety as a message that
isn't always accurate.
Sometimes it is ghost messages is what we
call that sometimes so they're no longer
relevant.
Maybe at some point they were relevant to
us to keep us safe, but they aren't anymore.
We manage the physical symptoms.
We change our language and how we talk to
(11:30):
ourselves, and we work on thought switching
by choosing a support statement or two.
Again, I talked about the support
statements in the last episode.
We're going to review some more in this
episode.
So, ideas for managing physical symptoms
there's the less active ones and then
there's the more active ones.
Less active is often what the internet
(11:51):
recommends for anxiety Meditation, slow
breathing, journaling, progressive muscle
relaxation.
Hypnosis is often a less active one.
You're just lying there listening to stuff.
Sometimes that's what's needed and you have
to figure that out for yourself.
Sometimes finding someplace quiet is needed.
(12:14):
Other times you need something more active.
That depends on the energy of the anxiety.
More active is some active yoga, not like
yoga nidra, where you're just laying there.
Okay, foam rolling exercise, music, dancing,
distracting yourself with social media, fun
videos, movies.
(12:35):
Sometimes making a list or writing it out
is something more active.
Often.
That can go on either side of it.
Don't think about just the more meditative
ones.
Also think about is something active needed
here?
That's how we manage physical symptoms.
Sometimes you know we're too anxious to do
(12:58):
some kind of breathing exercise.
It's just not going to work.
You have to bring your anxiety down enough
to be able to of breathing exercise.
It's just not going to work.
You have to bring your anxiety down enough
to be able to even do that.
All right, we change our language and how
we talk to ourself and our chimp.
We keep our chimp front and center here.
The chimp is throwing the anxiety at us and
we have to decide.
(13:19):
Is this message accurate?
Are they sending me an accurate message?
And we have to decide is this message
accurate?
Are they sending me an accurate message?
We're not.
If not, if there's no immediate danger here,
then we decide to stop the anxiety
producing thoughts or images and we give
ourselves positive statements.
We can even say them out loud, or what they
call sub vocalize, or just say them really
quietly to yourself.
(13:41):
I won't give the example on the podcast
because you won't hear me.
You'll like turn down your volume and be
like what happened to the volume?
Just say it really quietly to yourself.
You can look at handouts that you gather.
There's all kinds of worksheets you can do
that.
You can find online even.
Obviously, if you're working with me or
you're working with a therapist, then
(14:03):
probably you have some worksheets or some
handouts that they've given you, although
that's not always the case.
Sometimes people will come to me and
they've been through many therapists and I
always ask did you just talk or did they do
any handouts or worksheets with you?
And more times than I can count they say no,
(14:23):
we just talked and it wasn't very helpful.
I was like okay, in my practice we talk and
we do handouts and worksheets Because
sometimes you really need something to look
at and hold when you're anxious, because
your mind just sort of goes out, it goes
out the window, it leaves the bus and then
(14:44):
you're like okay, what do I do now?
Pull out your worksheets, you pull out a
handout, you pull out the statement, the
support statement that you wrote down
during session to help yourself, and you
put it somewhere that's handy for you so
that when you're anxious you could know
what to do.
All right, we choose support statements,
(15:06):
like I just said, and these support
statements become helpful autopilots
instead of gremlins or goblins.
The gremlins and goblins will pop up and be
like oh my god, you're such a basket case.
That's a gremlin.
Oh my god, you're never going to get it
together.
You're such a loser.
That's a goblin.
It's a little bit deeper right.
It's attacking you as a person.
(15:26):
You had an awful day and you're gonna get
fired at work and you're never gonna hold a
job.
I could be either one in gremlin or goblin.
So you Recognize these and you combat them
now.
You can combat them various ways, but
support statements are a good way to combat
them.
Now.
You can combat them various ways, but
support statements are a good way to combat
them.
(15:47):
When you're talking about deeper beliefs,
like I said on the previous episode, often
hypnosis helps heal and change those deeper
beliefs.
So if you find that the cognitive stuff
isn't working, the thought switching isn't
working for you, find someone in your area
that does hypnosis or reach out to me if
(16:07):
that's appropriate.
I work mostly in the US, europe, canada,
some South America, mostly in those areas.
But honestly, anyone trained who's a good
practitioner of hypnosis will totally want
to help you.
If you're like I'd like to change some
deeper beliefs, believe me, it's a dream
(16:29):
statement for a hypnotherapist to hear
You're like, yeah, we're on it.
Okay, great, that's all what we're all
about.
Deeper beliefs Okay.
So common support statements.
That thought isn't helpful right now.
It's a really good one for anxiety.
Now is not the time to think about it.
I can think about it later.
(16:49):
Sometimes that's possible, sometimes it's
not.
So you don't want to pick that one if you
feel like that's not possible.
This feels threatening and urgent, but it
really isn't.
If you've been listening to the podcast for
a while, you know that I recently moved
from South Florida.
I've been living over 30 years up to North
(17:10):
Florida.
This created some conflict in my marriage.
Just because you're dealing with a lot of
things Packing, movers, selling a house,
finding a new place to live Like it's a lot
to deal with and my husband had driven the
truck up the day before with all this stuff
and then I and my 19-year-old had come in
(17:33):
the car the following day with the two cats.
It's about a five to six hour drive from
South florida, north florida, where we're
going jacksonville, and so I'd been in the
car for you know, quite a while with the
two cats and the anxious teenager and not
listening to music because that would hurt
(17:53):
the cat's ears.
Okay, I pull up, we unload the car, we are
talking about whether we should return the
truck or not and finally we decide to go
ahead and return the truck that day instead
of the next day and I drive him to drop off
the truck and then, of course, I'm going to
drive him home and in the car he brings up
(18:17):
a conflict that we've been having and I
looked at him and was like this is not the
time, like I have been here a couple of
hours, I just drove the entire day with two
cats and an anxious teenager.
Like I can't do this right now.
But I knew in his mind it felt urgent, what
(18:40):
would have really really helped him the
support statement that says this feels
threatening and urgent, but it really isn't.
This can wait.
And later he apologized and said his timing
was really bad and I said, uh, yeah, really
bad.
Okay, the gotmans um are very famous
couples therapists who train therapists to
(19:02):
do couples therapy and have for like 30
years or something and they talk about
timing all the time how timing can be
really bad and then create a whole
different argument in a couple than the one
they're really trying to solve.
This was definitely a case of that.
But I've worked really hard on my own
(19:24):
emotional regulation and I think in the
past, meaning like 10 or 15 years ago, I
would have reacted very poorly to that.
I would have gotten really upset and angry,
maybe even started crying or yelling or
something like that.
But that's no longer me, hasn't been for a
very long time.
(19:44):
So I just said this really isn't the time
for that.
I really can't talk about that right now.
I am exhausted.
You know I'm sorry.
It feels urgent to you but it's going to
have to wait.
That's an example of that.
Right, I know the anxiety going off in
someone's head often and what they're
(20:06):
thinking, but it's like all right, let's
find a supportive statement for you.
Let's find a helpful autopilot Another one
it's good practice to let go of this worry.
I want to practice Every single moment.
I am getting better and better.
You can go to the spiritual.
I'm living this life and I'm on a journey
(20:28):
and this is part of my journey.
That's a spiritual statement.
Maybe I don't like this part of my journey,
but I am working through this.
I'm finding some help for this.
Just listening to this podcast is finding
some help for this.
I am finding my help.
I am learning as I go.
I'm getting better each and every day.
(20:50):
I learn different things all the time to
help me reduce anxiety in my life.
I'm creating rapid positive results that
magically defy anyone else's limitations of
me and my healing.
That's actually on my list.
I like that one a lot.
You can imagine not a whole lot of people
do, but I like it.
(21:12):
I am more than this body.
I'm an eternal being, perfect and whole.
I'm more than this physical experience.
I can change this physical experience
meaning like I can go for a walk, I can do
some breathing.
I can change this physical experience
meaning like I can go for a walk, I can do
some breathing, I can go for a run, like
whatever you need to do to change that
physical experience.
So these are just some.
People come up with their own all the time.
(21:33):
It has to be something you believe, that is
believable to you.
So maybe you don't believe it a hundred
percent, maybe it's step by step, but you
believe it enough that when you say it
you're like okay, I think that's true.
I think that may be true.
It's not an outright rejection, like that's
not true and it's never going to be true.
(21:54):
We don't want that.
We want one that you think you can believe.
When you handle a difficult situation, give
your chimp a banana, because chimps love
bananas.
When you find yourself in a very anxious
state and you work through some worksheets
and you identify the thoughts and you
(22:15):
identify the gremlins, maybe a goblin, and
then you go to a supportive statement and
you find that you have changed your state.
The anxiety did come down.
Maybe it didn't, but you did everything you
could to try to help yourself.
Give your chimp a banana, a small reward,
whatever that is for you or can be in the
(22:37):
moment.
Maybe you plan the reward for the next day
or later.
Try to give your chimp a small reward even
in the moment.
Maybe you plan the reward for the next day
or later.
Try to give your your chimp a small reward
even in the moment.
Speaking of moving, I had made these plans
in my planner and set the goal last year
and I have a note to self in here for the
emotional, because I knew this move was not
(22:58):
just practical, it's going to be very
emotional.
So I have a note to self and it says
remember to ask what's my plan and what's
my plan to help my chimp.
That's a really important one.
What's my plan to help my chimp?
What's my plan to help that part of my
brain that wants to freak out?
(23:19):
So I wrote down a couple of items to help
my chimp.
Okay, so this is not just stuff I teach,
this is stuff I apply to my own life.
Like I said in the other podcast, this book
has been life-changing, and that starts
with me.
If I feel like, oh, it's life-changing,
then I'm going to share the information,
not just with my clients, but on my podcast
(23:41):
as well.
All right, people, I'm going to wrap it up
here.
I hope you are healthy and safe.
I hope some of this has been helpful and
I'm going to give you a helpful autopilot
right here.
I can't guarantee that it was helpful to
anyone, but I tried to make my best effort
and organize it and present it in a way
that makes sense from an audio perspective.
(24:03):
I really do wish you could see the handout
and the visuals.
I happen to be very visual, so that's
helpful for me, but I made my best attempt
with the audio.
You know, when I first started recording
the podcast, I used to record the episodes
like multiple, multiple times because I
just felt like ugh, I didn't get them right.
I got to redo this and then, as I've been
going, I'm coming up on nine years now or
(24:26):
something.
I started it in 2016 and this is 2025.
Yeah, nine years.
Sometimes I do re-record them if they're
really disorganized, because sometimes I
have to speak it out loud to get the
organization down.
I've just learned that's my process over
time, but these days.
I don't do the like five recordings anymore,
(24:49):
it's one to two and then I think that's
good enough.
It's not perfect.
I probably missed some things in there.
I sometimes wish it was better, but it's
good enough for this week and I hope it
helps somebody.
This may sound different, because I'm
recording this a little bit later.
I realized I didn't tell you that we are
going to cover panic attacks as well in
(25:11):
this series.
This one was on anxiety, but panic attacks
are a different level of anxiety, so that's
coming up.
All right, everyone, I hope you're healthy
and safe Peace.
Hey, hey everyone.
Dr Liz, here we are continuing a little
mini-series maybe bigger than that, but
we'll see Based on the book A Path Through
the Jungle by Dr Peters, with an S,
p-e-t-e-r-s.
(00:22):
Now, the first episode I did this is hm 313
313.
So if you haven't heard that one and you
went more in the background, go back and
listen to that one.
But I'm going to give you the brief
overview here so that you're not completely
lost.
If you're like I don't know, dr liz, okay,
we have a chimp and we have a human.
(00:44):
The chimp is the monkey mind in and it just
throws around a lot of shit at us and it
signals when there's a problem.
It basically tells our human solve it,
solve it, solve it.
It continues to send the message in
not-so-pleasant ways.
It'll send us negative emotions until we
solve it.
The human is informed by two things the
(01:06):
chimp sending the message as well as our
programming, and our programming is our
beliefs, our subconscious beliefs, and we
have three different types.
We have helpful autopilots that help us out.
So these are good, positive thoughts.
Like you can handle this, you can adapt,
(01:26):
you've done amazing things in your life.
That's a good autopilot.
So let's just pause here.
If you're not keeping a success journal, I
highly suggest one, either electronic,
although I suggest like a nice little
notebook that's actually paper where you
write down successes nice little notebook
that's actually paper where you write down
(01:48):
successes.
One that I wrote down recently was when my
Cuban friend told me that this was the best
vaca frita he had ever had and I had made
it.
Okay, vaca frita is like this beef dish
that's a Cuban dish I don't make mine with
a tomato base, just in case you know what
that is.
And he said actually I usually avoid vaca
(02:09):
frita because I don't typically like it,
but this is delicious, it is the best I've
ever had.
And I was like I am totally writing that
down in my success journal.
That is huge.
When I first married my Cuban ex-husband, I
didn't even like to cook really.
So that's huge.
I made it for my daughter, my 19 year old,
(02:31):
because it's one of the few things that she
could eat without getting really sick and
nauseous.
So anyway, success journal, helpful
autopilots.
They often will come from your success
journal If you're tracking them, if you're
paying attention to them.
Two other subconscious beliefs are
unhelpful gremlins and unhelpful goblins.
(02:53):
The goblins are worse than the gremlins.
The goblins are these deeper subconscious
beliefs that say I'm a loser, I'm worthless,
I'll never get anywhere in my life.
I'm a loser, I'm worthless, I'll never get
anywhere in my life.
Gremlins are not so bad.
They're like okay, I did awful.
Or you know people say I'm an idiot all the
(03:13):
time.
But they'll add a bet to it.
But at least I did the best I could.
But that's still a gremlin.
I'm an idiot, it's still a gremlin.
Like, I say that all the time to myself and
sometimes it's true Okay, like I went to go
buy something.
And everyone knows, measure twice, measure
three times.
Right, that's more from like construction
before you cut, measure, measure twice, cut
(03:36):
once.
But still, when you're buying stuff, you
got to measure too.
And I did not measure and I got home and it
didn't fit and I was like I'm a total idiot.
But the helpful autopilot kicked in.
But it's okay, you're handling a lot of
things now and you can return this and buy
the right size.
Great, that's the helpful autopilot.
(03:57):
All right, I think many, many years passed
that would not have happened.
That second part.
I would have just felt stupid and believed
I was stupid too, maybe believed I can't
get anything right.
I would say that's probably a unhelpful
gremlin that I had in my past that is no
(04:18):
longer active.
Hasn't been for a long time.
Okay, so that's the very brief summary of
the whole last episode.
We try to change those negative beliefs
into helpful autopilots and then those
inform our human and the human solves the
problem that the chimp is throwing at it In
(04:40):
a positive way.
The chimp always wants to solve in a
negative way.
Actually, it doesn't really solve at all,
it really can't but it starts to act out
and do things that it thinks is solving.
But really that negative behavior is simply
just to get the attention of our human, who
can then go in and make a reasonable
decision for us.
That has some positive outcomes.
(05:03):
It doesn't sabotage ourself.
Okay, so we're going to talk more about
anxiety this week because I said we would
at the end of that episode Anxiety what is
helpful?
All right, let's do a little background on
anxiety here.
We know from brain studies that your brain
becomes sensitized to anxiety over time.
(05:24):
If it's not handled, anxiety gets
progressively worse.
Or if it's not treated, it gets
progressively worse and your brain starts
to set it off more and more frequently in
reaction to smaller and smaller things,
something that looks like nothing to
someone without anxiety will look huge to
someone with anxiety.
That's where you sometimes get this
(05:44):
disconnect, where they're like what, what
are you anxious about?
Like a disbelief kind of voice, because
they don't understand that your brain is
truly being affected by the anxiety.
Mainly it affects the hippocampus, which is
emotional processing, the anterior
cingulate, which is affect regulation,
(06:05):
that's, the ability to control and manage
uncomfortable emotions.
So our actual emotional regulation
decreases if we don't handle anxiety and
the amygdala, which is that fight or flight
freeze, the fear and anger creativity
center.
It affects all of that.
So when it's getting progressively worse,
(06:27):
we're getting less creative.
Literally we can come up with less
solutions.
And when it's treated, it gets
progressively better.
You become more creative, more courageous,
more confident, more able to handle
whatever the temp is throwing your way
without setting off anxiety.
So these are pretty incredible brain
(06:49):
studies that they do regarding anxiety and
I think it's so interesting because I see
it.
I see it in my practice all the time, being
an anxiety specialist.
People at the beginning cannot come up with
solutions, helpful autopilots, they just
(07:11):
feel stuck.
They really do and they are.
Their brain is stuck.
But when they begin to get better, then
they start to come up with creative
solutions, creative thoughts, creative
statements to say to themselves, support
statements, helpful autopilots to say
themselves.
So that's, it's an immediate and concrete
evidence of creativity.
Returning Now according to A Path Through
(07:34):
the Jungle if there's not an immediate
danger, anxiety is not dangerous.
It's just unpleasant and inconvenient.
And we have to ask what gremlin or goblin
is active?
So we ask that, okay, is there an immediate
danger?
Am I in danger here?
If not, then this is not dangerous.
(07:56):
But it's really unpleasant.
And again, our brains try to trick us and
make us think that something that's not
dangerous is dangerous.
So we have to talk back to our brain.
If we always believed our brains like 100%
of the time, we would be in some deep
doo-doo.
Okay, my brain is not accurate, all the
(08:17):
time is not accurate.
So we learn over time.
Okay, those thoughts aren't always accurate.
Let's choose the ones that are more helpful
to us.
Let's choose the ones that are going to
help me in this situation.
Let's choose the thoughts that can soothe
the chimp, that can make friends with the
(08:37):
chimp, that can reassure the chimp, because
the chimp needs some attention here Because,
remember, the chimp doesn't look for
solutions, it just tries to tell you about
the problem or uses avoidance okay, to
escape the situation, to get away from the
problem.
Don't include avoidance as part of your
plan.
(08:58):
If there's not an immediate danger, okay.
I'm not talking about domestic violence
here.
Avoidance is the primary thing you should
do.
With domestic violence, we're a dangerous
situation.
We're not stepping into dangerous
situations here.
We are using avoidance.
We try to avoid dangerous situations
whenever we can.
Why?
Because we have a survival drive, a safety
(09:20):
drive.
So we're not talking about that.
We're just simply talking about things that
are not so dangerous.
But we have started avoiding, like lizards.
I know you probably weren't expecting me to
say lizards.
At one point, my niece from Texas came to
visit me and she was a teenager at the time
and she was terrified of lizards.
(09:41):
Now there are lizards all over South
Florida.
We are warm okay, lizards love us.
You can literally go weeks, months seeing a
lizard almost every day.
Okay, they're in the house, they're on the
(10:01):
walls, they're in the sidewalks.
The cats bring them in Okay, they are
everywhere.
These are little lizards about the size of
your finger, you know, and I'm including
people who have all kinds of different size
hands here.
Okay, but really that's the variation.
We're talking about small lizards, and so
she was terrified of them and so we had to
(10:24):
walk through this process of like these are
not an immediate danger to you.
Your brain is lying to you about this and
we're going to have to do something more
helpful for you.
We're going to ignore the lizards or we're
going to tell ourselves something different
about the lizards.
Okay, so that's what I'm talking about.
I know immediate danger.
There's no lizards attacking her, all right.
(10:44):
And we're not talking about iguanas.
That's a whole different thing, although I
had multiple iguanas come into my house
over the years to get warm when it, when
the temperature would drop and, believe me,
I do not like iguanas in my house they were
always met with the scream in the broom.
Anyway, talking about lizards here.
(11:09):
Now, what's helpful for anxiety?
We're getting closer to the helpful stuff
here.
We recognize anxiety as a message that
isn't always accurate.
Sometimes it is ghost messages is what we
call that sometimes so they're no longer
relevant.
Maybe at some point they were relevant to
us to keep us safe, but they aren't anymore.
We manage the physical symptoms.
We change our language and how we talk to
(11:30):
ourselves, and we work on thought switching
by choosing a support statement or two.
Again, I talked about the support
statements in the last episode.
We're going to review some more in this
episode.
So, ideas for managing physical symptoms
there's the less active ones and then
there's the more active ones.
Less active is often what the internet
(11:51):
recommends for anxiety Meditation, slow
breathing, journaling, progressive muscle
relaxation.
Hypnosis is often a less active one.
You're just lying there listening to stuff.
Sometimes that's what's needed and you have
to figure that out for yourself.
Sometimes finding someplace quiet is needed.
(12:14):
Other times you need something more active.
That depends on the energy of the anxiety.
More active is some active yoga, not like
yoga nidra, where you're just laying there.
Okay, foam rolling exercise, music, dancing,
distracting yourself with social media, fun
videos, movies.
(12:35):
Sometimes making a list or writing it out
is something more active.
Often.
That can go on either side of it.
Don't think about just the more meditative
ones.
Also think about is something active needed
here?
That's how we manage physical symptoms.
Sometimes you know we're too anxious to do
(12:58):
some kind of breathing exercise.
It's just not going to work.
You have to bring your anxiety down enough
to be able to of breathing exercise.
It's just not going to work.
You have to bring your anxiety down enough
to be able to even do that.
All right, we change our language and how
we talk to ourself and our chimp.
We keep our chimp front and center here.
The chimp is throwing the anxiety at us and
we have to decide.
(13:19):
Is this message accurate?
Are they sending me an accurate message?
And we have to decide is this message
accurate?
Are they sending me an accurate message?
We're not.
If not, if there's no immediate danger here,
then we decide to stop the anxiety
producing thoughts or images and we give
ourselves positive statements.
We can even say them out loud, or what they
call sub vocalize, or just say them really
quietly to yourself.
(13:41):
I won't give the example on the podcast
because you won't hear me.
You'll like turn down your volume and be
like what happened to the volume?
Just say it really quietly to yourself.
You can look at handouts that you gather.
There's all kinds of worksheets you can do
that.
You can find online even.
Obviously, if you're working with me or
you're working with a therapist, then
(14:03):
probably you have some worksheets or some
handouts that they've given you, although
that's not always the case.
Sometimes people will come to me and
they've been through many therapists and I
always ask did you just talk or did they do
any handouts or worksheets with you?
And more times than I can count they say no,
(14:23):
we just talked and it wasn't very helpful.
I was like okay, in my practice we talk and
we do handouts and worksheets Because
sometimes you really need something to look
at and hold when you're anxious, because
your mind just sort of goes out, it goes
out the window, it leaves the bus and then
(14:44):
you're like okay, what do I do now?
Pull out your worksheets, you pull out a
handout, you pull out the statement, the
support statement that you wrote down
during session to help yourself, and you
put it somewhere that's handy for you so
that when you're anxious you could know
what to do.
All right, we choose support statements,
(15:06):
like I just said, and these support
statements become helpful autopilots
instead of gremlins or goblins.
The gremlins and goblins will pop up and be
like oh my god, you're such a basket case.
That's a gremlin.
Oh my god, you're never going to get it
together.
You're such a loser.
That's a goblin.
It's a little bit deeper right.
It's attacking you as a person.
(15:26):
You had an awful day and you're gonna get
fired at work and you're never gonna hold a
job.
I could be either one in gremlin or goblin.
So you Recognize these and you combat them
now.
You can combat them various ways, but
support statements are a good way to combat
them.
Now.
You can combat them various ways, but
support statements are a good way to combat
them.
(15:47):
When you're talking about deeper beliefs,
like I said on the previous episode, often
hypnosis helps heal and change those deeper
beliefs.
So if you find that the cognitive stuff
isn't working, the thought switching isn't
working for you, find someone in your area
that does hypnosis or reach out to me if
(16:07):
that's appropriate.
I work mostly in the US, europe, canada,
some South America, mostly in those areas.
But honestly, anyone trained who's a good
practitioner of hypnosis will totally want
to help you.
If you're like I'd like to change some
deeper beliefs, believe me, it's a dream
(16:29):
statement for a hypnotherapist to hear
You're like, yeah, we're on it.
Okay, great, that's all what we're all
about.
Deeper beliefs Okay.
So common support statements.
That thought isn't helpful right now.
It's a really good one for anxiety.
Now is not the time to think about it.
I can think about it later.
(16:49):
Sometimes that's possible, sometimes it's
not.
So you don't want to pick that one if you
feel like that's not possible.
This feels threatening and urgent, but it
really isn't.
If you've been listening to the podcast for
a while, you know that I recently moved
from South Florida.
I've been living over 30 years up to North
(17:10):
Florida.
This created some conflict in my marriage.
Just because you're dealing with a lot of
things Packing, movers, selling a house,
finding a new place to live Like it's a lot
to deal with and my husband had driven the
truck up the day before with all this stuff
and then I and my 19-year-old had come in
(17:33):
the car the following day with the two cats.
It's about a five to six hour drive from
South florida, north florida, where we're
going jacksonville, and so I'd been in the
car for you know, quite a while with the
two cats and the anxious teenager and not
listening to music because that would hurt
(17:53):
the cat's ears.
Okay, I pull up, we unload the car, we are
talking about whether we should return the
truck or not and finally we decide to go
ahead and return the truck that day instead
of the next day and I drive him to drop off
the truck and then, of course, I'm going to
drive him home and in the car he brings up
(18:17):
a conflict that we've been having and I
looked at him and was like this is not the
time, like I have been here a couple of
hours, I just drove the entire day with two
cats and an anxious teenager.
Like I can't do this right now.
But I knew in his mind it felt urgent, what
(18:40):
would have really really helped him the
support statement that says this feels
threatening and urgent, but it really isn't.
This can wait.
And later he apologized and said his timing
was really bad and I said, uh, yeah, really
bad.
Okay, the gotmans um are very famous
couples therapists who train therapists to
(19:02):
do couples therapy and have for like 30
years or something and they talk about
timing all the time how timing can be
really bad and then create a whole
different argument in a couple than the one
they're really trying to solve.
This was definitely a case of that.
But I've worked really hard on my own
(19:24):
emotional regulation and I think in the
past, meaning like 10 or 15 years ago, I
would have reacted very poorly to that.
I would have gotten really upset and angry,
maybe even started crying or yelling or
something like that.
But that's no longer me, hasn't been for a
very long time.
(19:44):
So I just said this really isn't the time
for that.
I really can't talk about that right now.
I am exhausted.
You know I'm sorry.
It feels urgent to you but it's going to
have to wait.
That's an example of that.
Right, I know the anxiety going off in
someone's head often and what they're
(20:06):
thinking, but it's like all right, let's
find a supportive statement for you.
Let's find a helpful autopilot Another one
it's good practice to let go of this worry.
I want to practice Every single moment.
I am getting better and better.
You can go to the spiritual.
I'm living this life and I'm on a journey
(20:28):
and this is part of my journey.
That's a spiritual statement.
Maybe I don't like this part of my journey,
but I am working through this.
I'm finding some help for this.
Just listening to this podcast is finding
some help for this.
I am finding my help.
I am learning as I go.
I'm getting better each and every day.
(20:50):
I learn different things all the time to
help me reduce anxiety in my life.
I'm creating rapid positive results that
magically defy anyone else's limitations of
me and my healing.
That's actually on my list.
I like that one a lot.
You can imagine not a whole lot of people
do, but I like it.
(21:12):
I am more than this body.
I'm an eternal being, perfect and whole.
I'm more than this physical experience.
I can change this physical experience
meaning like I can go for a walk, I can do
some breathing.
I can change this physical experience
meaning like I can go for a walk, I can do
some breathing, I can go for a run, like
whatever you need to do to change that
physical experience.
So these are just some.
People come up with their own all the time.
(21:33):
It has to be something you believe, that is
believable to you.
So maybe you don't believe it a hundred
percent, maybe it's step by step, but you
believe it enough that when you say it
you're like okay, I think that's true.
I think that may be true.
It's not an outright rejection, like that's
not true and it's never going to be true.
(21:54):
We don't want that.
We want one that you think you can believe.
When you handle a difficult situation, give
your chimp a banana, because chimps love
bananas.
When you find yourself in a very anxious
state and you work through some worksheets
and you identify the thoughts and you
(22:15):
identify the gremlins, maybe a goblin, and
then you go to a supportive statement and
you find that you have changed your state.
The anxiety did come down.
Maybe it didn't, but you did everything you
could to try to help yourself.
Give your chimp a banana, a small reward,
whatever that is for you or can be in the
(22:37):
moment.
Maybe you plan the reward for the next day
or later.
Try to give your chimp a small reward even
in the moment.
Maybe you plan the reward for the next day
or later.
Try to give your your chimp a small reward
even in the moment.
Speaking of moving, I had made these plans
in my planner and set the goal last year
and I have a note to self in here for the
emotional, because I knew this move was not
(22:58):
just practical, it's going to be very
emotional.
So I have a note to self and it says
remember to ask what's my plan and what's
my plan to help my chimp.
That's a really important one.
What's my plan to help my chimp?
What's my plan to help that part of my
brain that wants to freak out?
(23:19):
So I wrote down a couple of items to help
my chimp.
Okay, so this is not just stuff I teach,
this is stuff I apply to my own life.
Like I said in the other podcast, this book
has been life-changing, and that starts
with me.
If I feel like, oh, it's life-changing,
then I'm going to share the information,
not just with my clients, but on my podcast
(23:41):
as well.
All right, people, I'm going to wrap it up
here.
I hope you are healthy and safe.
I hope some of this has been helpful and
I'm going to give you a helpful autopilot
right here.
I can't guarantee that it was helpful to
anyone, but I tried to make my best effort
and organize it and present it in a way
that makes sense from an audio perspective.
(24:03):
I really do wish you could see the handout
and the visuals.
I happen to be very visual, so that's
helpful for me, but I made my best attempt
with the audio.
You know, when I first started recording
the podcast, I used to record the episodes
like multiple, multiple times because I
just felt like ugh, I didn't get them right.
I got to redo this and then, as I've been
going, I'm coming up on nine years now or
(24:26):
something.
I started it in 2016 and this is 2025.
Yeah, nine years.
Sometimes I do re-record them if they're
really disorganized, because sometimes I
have to speak it out loud to get the
organization down.
I've just learned that's my process over
time, but these days.
I don't do the like five recordings anymore,
(24:49):
it's one to two and then I think that's
good enough.
It's not perfect.
I probably missed some things in there.
I sometimes wish it was better, but it's
good enough for this week and I hope it
helps somebody.
This may sound different, because I'm
recording this a little bit later.
I realized I didn't tell you that we are
going to cover panic attacks as well in
(25:11):
this series.
This one was on anxiety, but panic attacks
are a different level of anxiety, so that's
coming up.
All right, everyone, I hope you're healthy
and safe Peace.
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